Friday, February 8, 2013

February 8

It's Baaa-aack! -Wingnuttia (Michigan Chapter) has introduced legislationrequiring all women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before obtaining an abortion.So how's that rebranding effort working out for you, fellas? (TPM)

War on Women, Cont. -So down in Dixie (Dicks-y?) Alabama state Sen.Shadrack McGill(R-Sisterf***) lamented that "you can be charged up to $250,000 for destroying an eagle egg, but you can destroy babies in the womb?" So he is pursuing anotherpersonhood billbecause the Bible proves that a fetus"is life inside of a mother."Now ofcourse, being a good old boy, he's not playing God, he's just not sure ifaborted babies are going to Heaven or Hell. I will repeat myself: How's that rebranding effort working out for you fellas? (Raw Story)

Remember, Republicans are totally different now, so women are encouraged to flock to the party. How are they different? Well, don't you worry your pretty little head over that. Just remember that the GOP has a big tent and the only price of admission is a kick in the head — provided you're not a white male. They still get in for free.

Some survivors of the mass shooting in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater last year have been "relentlessly" harassed by conspiracy theorists who believe the shooting never happened, according to a court document.

In a court filing this week, Deputy District Attorney George Brauchler wrote that "proponents of purported 'conspiracies' … have contacted victims in this case, some of whom have even gone so far as to recruit other members of the public to contact the victims and to publicly post maps with the home addresses and phone numbers of the victims on various social media sites."

The targeted people have expressed concerns about their "privacy and personal safety," the district attorney continued.

The report goes on to remind us that "Sandy Hook truthers" are making asses of themselves as well.

The easiest explanation I can think of for all this is cowardice. Wingnuts live in a post-logical world where they can believe whatever they want to, the facts be damned. And the reason they do this is because they're crap-their-pants scared of everything. So frightened that they construct elaborate alternate realities where the things they fear don't actually exist. Global warming means that society will have to make some pretty profound changes, so that's a hoax. Evolution means that maybe the Bible isn't as true as they'd like it to be, so that's a bunch of hooey. Polls show Mitt Romney behind in the presidential election? They're "skewed" by a media in the tank for Obama.And of course, Obama's not really the president anyway, since only a citizen can be president and Barack Obama's a secret Mulsim terr'ist from Kenya.

At no point will a conservative wingnut accept reality if that reality is too frightening for them to face. So shootings that have people talking gun control must be hoaxes. Because gun control terrifies them.

Why does gun control terrify them?

Did I mention they're cowards? You don't think you need assault rifles with high-capacity magazines and piles of ammo if you're in possession of an abundance of courage. Gun nuts are drawn to conspiracy theories for the same reason they're drawn to guns.

I'm old enough to remember when Paul Ryan and the Young Guns were the party's saviors. Rubio will be no different. And when he delivers the Republican rebuttal to the president's State of the Union Address, I expect he will have his own "volcano monitoring" moment.

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Media Matters wrote up the complete history of assault rifles. It's worth checking out. It's especially worth noting that assault rifles were developed as weapons of war — designed to hunt and kill people. Obviously.

Oh, and this:

1989: President George H.W. Bush uses executive action to ban the importation of foreign-made semi-automatic assault weapons, directing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to only allow the importation of firearms "generally recognized as particularly suitable for, or readily adaptable to sporting purposes."

May 1994: Former presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter write a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives urging the enactment of an assault weapons ban. In the letter, the former presidents write, "This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety … We urge you to listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of these weapons."